


Bug in the System

by memefair



Series: Canon Divergent: Nanamicentric [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Human Nanami Chiaki, Nanami Chiaki Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-22 23:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14319939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memefair/pseuds/memefair
Summary: A recent betrayal has Chiaki on edge, and all she and her companions can do is watch and wait as the former members of Class 77-B and Hinata Hajime fight for their lives.





	1. Mr. Monokuma's Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> cobbled together a few oneshots from my rp blog as an excuse to post them. the second part gets a little... dark, but as far as i'm aware no content warnings apply.
> 
> note: if you're here for fluffy kamunami that ignores his role as an antagonist, then you're in the wrong place.

“You’ll have to look at the screen some time,” Togami commented, voice acerbic as he pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

Chiaki’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t respond to him. Even if she’d intended to, she’d have been cut off by Naegi’s scolding.

“Togami-kun, can’t you be at least a little sympathetic?”

The former heir snorted, angling his head so he was looking down his nose at them even more than usual. It was likely nerves that had him acting so agitated. His hackles were up as he felt the pressure bearing down on them, the weight of what they’d done finally sinking in now that it had become a reality.

“You expect me to be anything other than overjoyed that that menace was put into the program? After everything he’s done?”

“Allegedly,” came Kirigiri’s cool reply. Now both Togami and Chiaki were grinding their teeth in frustration.

Naegi excused himself, saying he’d make Chiaki some coffee so she could stay awake. Kirigiri nodded, departing soon after him, and Togami turned his back so he could continue to observe the program.

The silence that followed was incredibly frigid despite the heat and humidity of the island.

When she’d first found out what they’d done, she’d fought them– literally. Naegi and Togami held her back as she threatened to pull the plug on the whole thing, tears of panic and betrayal welling up in her eyes. Once they’d managed to calm her down, Kirigiri had explained that shutting down the program now would be far too dangerous.

In other words, what was done was done.

Kamukura Izuru’s personality, his entire existence, would be overwritten with that of his original identity. If the program worked as intended, he would be gone forever.

It was bad enough to be losing somebody she’d grown to love over the last couple of years, but… it didn’t add up. Chiaki thought she knew him well enough by now to know he would never sacrifice himself without a purpose, an agenda of some sort.

It would be beneficial to no one but himself, whatever it was. She had this sickening feeling in her stomach that things were about to go horribly wrong, and it would be all her fault.

Again. Once again she had potentially exposed her friends to danger. She couldn’t do anything right, could she? The more she tried to fix this, the more broken it became. She’d cut her fingers trying to gather up the shattered pieces of their lives, and all she succeeded in doing was staining them more.

“Here,” Naegi said suddenly with a smile.

Chiaki turned, glancing up, having not even heard him come back into the room. Had that much time already passed?

"I’ll be right back. I made a bit of a mess in the kitchen,” he explained with a sheepish laugh, an attempt to cover up how anxious and worn out he, too, was feeling.

Chiaki held the hot mug in her hands, staring down at the murky depths with something akin to dread. Naegi left.

“Ah– Naegi-kun,” she called after him.

He poked his head back around the corner. “…I’m sorry I hit you earlier. I didn’t mean to.” There was already a bruise forming along his jaw.

Kirigiri came in not a second later, and without speaking she gently plucked the cup of coffee out of Chiaki’s hands and replaced it with chamomile tea instead. Chiaki sipped at it, appreciative.

Now probably wasn’t the time to finally reveal to Naegi that she’d only pretended to like coffee to be polite, all those years ago when they’d first reconnected thanks to Future Foundation.

She allowed the tea to soothe her, taking it in slowly as she considered their next course of action. _If anyone can figure out how to survive this, it’s Izuru,_ she tried to reassure herself. _You don’t know yet for sure–_

“Something’s happening,” called Togami, alarmed, yanking the headphones off his head with no regard for their well being. Next came the cord, pulled unceremoniously so they could all hear the program.

That laughter, as if their nightmares had come to life, echoed throughout the lab.

Nobody moved.

Nobody seemed certain, even the ever-stoic Kirigiri entering into a trance-like state, wondering if this might be a dream after all. Chiaki, meanwhile, felt like she’d been jolted out of her slumber. A bucket of ice cold water might as well have been dropped down over top of her, soaking her through to the bone.

Defying all expectations, she was the one who moved first. She stood in her chair so suddenly that the desk wobbled, the remaining tea in her mug rippling from the force of it.

“You never should have trusted him!” Chiaki cried out, shoulders bunched up, hands tightened into fists at her side as she looked at nobody, gaze fixated on the floor as if it might open up any moment and swallow her whole. She swallowed thickly, shaking, frozen there.

Then she bolted out of the room, leaving Naegi, Togami, and Kirigiri in her wake.

Naegi started forward as if to go after her, but Kirigiri reached out and placed one gloved hand on his shoulder, holding him back.

 _You never should have trusted him!_ echoed inside Chiaki’s head, over and over, the dam threatening to burst. _You never should have trusted him. You never should have trusted him. You never should have trusted him._

He just lived his life going from one experiment to the next, after all.


	2. Oshioki Arcade Rabbit

Sleep wouldn’t come to her no matter how she tried, it seemed.

Curled up there under the covers, she’d been staring at the wall for the past hour, focusing on her breath, counting sheep, doing anything she could think of to coax her mind into relaxing enough so she could doze off. The harder she tried, it seemed, the harder it became.

Knowing it was futile, she still tried to get up without disturbing him, sitting up and gently pushing back the blankets so she could swing her legs out from underneath. The instant her feet touched the floor, though, she heard him speak without even moving to look at her.

“Don’t.”

Chiaki’s slight frown turned into a pout. “I can’t sleep,” she pointed out. He would already know the reason, of course. Someone with his intellect would figure it out easily.

“You have a far better probability of getting to sleep if you stay in bed than if you get up and play games.”

Dang it. She grumbled wordlessly as she pulled herself back into bed.

He turned to look at her, and without giving him any sort of warning she rolled over and collapsed on top of him, her head on his chest. She closed her eyes, taking in the sound of his heart beating. After a moment’s pause, he accepted, closing his arms loosely around her.

She didn’t speak for a while. She’d feel guilty about potentially keeping him up, if he had anywhere to be the next morning, but as far as she was aware he had no plans.

What sort of plans would he make, anyway? Everything was so boring.

Chiaki yawned. “What do you do all day while I’m gone…?” she asked him.

Something jarred her then– a bit of static over his response, like time leaped forward a little, and then they were sitting up in bed.

Chiaki blinked. Her back to him now, chin resting on her head, he took her small hands in his own.

_This is wrong,_ she thought to herself.

His voice was just as deadpan as it always was, but the words he spoke drove against her like the edge of a knife.

“Did I think about how it would hurt you?” he asked her, in a voice that both was and wasn’t his. Her breath caught in her throat.

“The virus. You wonder how often I thought about it while I was with you.”

“What are you…” she trailed off, swallowing a nervous lump in her throat. “Izuru. What’s going on?” He didn't sound like himself. In fact, she might even say he sounded like...

More static. His hands were at her throat suddenly, caressing her before pressing down, slowly cutting off her supply of oxygen.

“Perhaps,” he murmured. She squirmed uncomfortably, clawing at his iron grip. “While you slept next to me… or during dinner…”

She gasped for breath.

“Or while we had sex.”

Her entire body went cold.

“Shut up!” she choked out, still trying desperately to break free. His touch seared her to her core. She felt bile rising in her throat as he crushed it, like he was poison she’d been keeping down for too long. “Shut– u–!”

He cut her off, her airways closing completely. She gagged on the final syllable.

Yet another shift in reality, and the hands at her neck were smaller, more feminine, long red nails cutting into her skin. No longer behind her at all, she was confronted with the same grim visage she’d been seeing in her nightmares for over three years now. “I had him all along and you didn’t even know it,” the girl whispered, strawberry blonde locks tickling Chiaki’s nose as if to taunt her. “He didn’t even know it. He thought he could use me? I always get what I want, sen~pai…”

Chiaki kicked, bucking wildly as she tried to throw Enoshima’s grip off of her, but somehow she was just as steely as Kamukura before her. She could hear the grin in her voice as she continued to whisper, serpentine words slithering in her ears.

“Thank you.” Enoshima leaned in closer, breath on her face. “Thank you so much for letting him build you up… after all, you should have known, right? You let this happen.”

Turning blue, all Chiaki could do was mutely shake her head. _It’s true, though,_ came an insidious from the back of her mind. Closer came the dead girl in front of her, locking eyes with her as she suffocated, and then… their lips met. She kissed her tenderly, with all the feeling in the world.

Chiaki woke up with a strangled scream, tearing out of her bed on Jabberwock, halfway to the door before she realized it had all been a dream. Sweating, she sat down dumbly where she stood.

_Enough,_ she told herself as she shook, _I’ve had enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im always a slut for angst :')


	3. The Day Before the Future

The stress of watching the program from the outside, unable to intervene, wore them down.

It wasn’t something gradual. From the moment the party began, Chiaki’s hand found Naegi’s, squeezing it tight in fear. He squeezed back, neither of them speaking a word, horror clear on both of their faces as they watched the monitor. They shared a sick feeling in their stomachs, knowing this couldn't end well.

Later Chiaki would find him with Kirigiri, the younger woman speaking in calm, cool tones, urging him to rest. But they both stayed up late that night, unable to tear their eyes off the screen.

Even if she tried to sleep, she couldn’t. She saw Enoshima’s smile in her mind, a finger pressed to closed lips: _everyone has their secrets._  She would wake up in a cold sweat, finding a blanket wrapped around her shoulders where she’d fallen asleep monitoring the program.

For her coworkers, she knew it was different. They had to relive their worst moments, watching in agony as the students of Class 77-b and Hinata Hajime fought for their lives. They’d lived through this themselves.

For her, though, the pain was something a bit more personal. When the Imposter died, she pressed a hand to her mouth, willing herself not to scream, remembering a time when she could show up to the classroom and find Hanamura lecturing “Mitarai” on the benefits of cutting fast food out of his diet. A time when Koizumi would take pictures of Pekoyama and Kuzuryuu together, calm and serene and most importantly together. A time when Tsumiki would bandage Saionji’s wounds with a smile, Mioda cheering both of them up when life seemed too difficult to bear.

_Please. Please don’t do this to each other._

Her nails were bitten down to the core, and she moved on to the skin around them, leaving it raw and sensitive. Dark circles grew under her eyes. Her skirts wouldn’t fit her anymore. Nobody in the compound really knew how to sew very well, so they simply stuck a few safety pins in her clothes and called it a day.

When a trial was coming up, she found she was unable to keep her food down thanks to her anxiety. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for the ones inside the program, who had no idea why this was happening to them, that none of it was real.

Inside all of it was that rage, that feeling of being utterly unable to change anything in this life.

She knew that it had to have been Izuru who put the virus into the program. She could think of no other reason he would allow himself to be captured. He had to have been planning it for a long time– possibly, for as long as she had known him.

Used. Violated. Betrayed. What used to give her strength now made her shudder with revulsion, remembering his lips on hers and the security she felt when she pulled his arms around her and nestled in close.

She’d been scared then, too. Scared that somebody would find out, that there was no future where she was going. Scared to say “I love you” even though her heart beat with that knowledge every time they were together, because part of her had to know he would not, could not reciprocate.

So she lied to herself, and she paid the price. _What an idiot you are,_ Chiaki told herself every day, _to think you could ever make a difference to him._  Her anger wasn’t just directed at him, but also at herself for being foolish enough to fall for him. _Stupid girl,_ she used to hear her mother mutter, shaking her head with dismay when Chiaki came home with another failed or late assignment. For a while, she’d really thought she’d risen above that.

She spent most of her time quiet and contemplative, but every now and then she’d contact the Alter Ego within the program, an AI that had taken her form. Little messages were passed along.

“Tell them you’re proud of them,” she’d type out. “Make sure they know somebody cares.” Or perhaps, “please tell him he’s done so well, talent or no talent.”

Late one night, she was just about to go to bed when something on the screen caught her attention. She began firing message after message at the other Chiaki, urging her to hurry.

_I think he’s going into the final dead room! Stop him, he’ll be killed!_

After that, Naegi had to drag her off to sleep because her paranoia kept her rooted to the spot.

He kept at her most of the time, insisting that she eat and at least try to sleep, and she joined Kirigiri and Togami in doing the same for him.

Sometimes, when she slept, she would sleep walk. She’d awaken and find herself standing there among the pods, staring at them without truly seeing them. Once, she came awake with a start to find herself curled up next to Komaeda’s pod, forehead resting against the cold metal casing.

“Naegi-kun,” Chiaki said softly one morning, turning to look at her companion with tired, swollen eyes. “If she gets what she wants out of this–”

“She won’t,” he told her. Even though he had to be as exhausted as she was, his expression was one of determination.

“–if she does,” Chiaki repeated, “you know what we have to do.”

_We have to kill them. Before they can come alive again with her personality uploaded into their bodies, we have to destroy them._

Right back where she started before she knew the program existed. It was a bitter taste in her mouth to know they might have simply gone in a wide circle this entire time.

Naegi didn’t respond.

She knew he disagreed with her. He felt killing was wrong and amoral, that they had no right to decide who lived and who died. It was likely an opinion informed by his experiences within his own killing game.

Chiaki, meanwhile, knew that she would never sacrifice multitudes of lives for the sake of one person getting a second chance– even if that person was her. She would gladly give her life to save even one other person… perhaps now more than before, because she knew what awaited her back at Future Foundation was execution or incarceration.

“It’s time,” came Togami’s cutting voice. “We can get into the program. Get ready, you two.”

Naegi and Nanami exchanged glances. She squeezed his hand once again for comfort, and then they both stood.

_Whatever happens, I know I’m not done fighting._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thnx for coming to my ted talk


End file.
